Juha

Juha is a three-act opera by Aarre Merikanto (1893-1958), with a Finnish libretto by Aino Ackté-Jalander based on the 1911 novel of the same name by Juhani Aho. Although completed by 1922, it was only finally staged at the music college in Lahti in 1963. This vocal score is based on the piano arrangement by the composer and his father Oskar Merikanto, but many sections have been reformed by Ulf Söderblom and Ralf Gothóni in order to match the third and final orchestral version of the opera.

The story is a drama of a love triangle: the older husband Juha, his young wife Marja, and her seducer the merchant Shemeikka. Set in the 1880s in Kainuu in northern Finland, the human tragedy is based around the harsh realities of a farming community and the clash of their lifestyle with the more worldly nomadic Karelians, represented by Shemeikka.